Gabriel Scott got his J.D. in 2012, with a certificate in Maritime Law, from Tulane University Law School, and was admitted to the Alaska bar that same year.
Prior to passing the bar, Scott gained experience working on mass tort and environmental litigation. While in New Orleans, he worked at Waltzer & Wiygul, primarily assisting in representation of fishermen, natives and locals during the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation.
He has also worked at The Scott Law Group, P.S., on appellate briefing for a consumer fairness class action (Carlsen v. Global Client Solutions), and has assisted that firm with several other major class actions, including Vermiculite Attic Insulation.
Scott has long experience in the non-profit environmental field, and has devoted the better part of his life to defending wild places. Serving as Alaska Field Director for Cascadia Wildlands, a non-profit environmental organization, since 1998, Scott taught himself how to navigate the legal system.
He has filed dozens of comments and appeals on State and Federal environmental impact statements, and well understands the interplay between litigation and political organizing. Notable successes include Eyak Preservation Council v. USFS, which helped stop oil exploration at Katalla, on the Copper River Delta; Greenpeace v. Cole, 445 Fed. Appx. 925 (9th Cir. 2011), which held the Tongass national forest accountable for failing to implement protections for deer and wolf in designing old-growth timber sales; Cascadia v. Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Land, a State court case that resulted in a settlement agreement that permanently protects Hatcher Pass from subdivision overdevelopment; and Cascadia v. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Spill Prevention and Response, an adjudicatory challenge to the oil spill contingency plan for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. Scott continues to work 1/2-time for Cascadia on a small number of strategic projects.
A primary motivation for Scott to become a lawyer was the Supreme Court decision in the Exxon Valdezlitigation, which gutted the punitive damage award under maritime law. The failure of our highest Justices to respect the environmental and social injustice of the oil spill, and the revelation that maritime law doctrines are a powerful force in addressing environmental disputes, convinced Scott that Cordova needs a good maritime lawyer.
Scott first came to Alaska in 1994, when he was twenty, on a full-ride debate scholarship to the University of Alaska, Anchorage. After competing at the highest levels of intercollegiate debate (awards include a Phi Betta Kappa national championship at Cornell, and 13th speaker in the nation at CEDA Nationals), Alaska’s landscape captured his soul. Scott quit school to pursue a life in small town Alaska, eventually finishing his B.A. at University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and settling in the coastal hamlet of Cordova. Scott lives with his wife and two young children in Cordova. They think this is paradise.
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